


Familiar

by gunpowdereyes



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3136166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunpowdereyes/pseuds/gunpowdereyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Darren still knows him best of all.  For Crisscolfer Bingo prompt "Familiar."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiar

There is no earthly reason to have ended up in a bet to best describe Chris in ten words or less. To have invented it no less, with complete childish stupidity. To place himself in some kind of critical make-or-break position and go last. Not in a room mostly made up of people who think they know him better, these days, who have now plied him with flattery and gorgeous cocktails. Certainly not when pushed a little more towards recklessness by the third – recount, fifth – far-too-smooth glass of whiskey. He doesn’t even know the stakes. 

“Come on, Darren. Last and maybe least. What words would you give me?” Chris’s eyes narrow slightly, a challenge, a smirk, but there’s real curiosity behind it. An itching to know, Darren can tell.

“Solitary,” he says finally. He meets Chris’s unreadable gaze and only hopes his own is no more revealing. “Determined. Proud.” He leaves a pause between each word, letting each fully settle. “Insecure.” 

He can see a man out of the corner of his eye, his mouth pulled into an uncomfortable, almost pitying grin. Proof that he’s the one out of his depth here; Darren needs no one’s pity. Not yet. Chris hasn’t stopped staring at him, but the amused glint has disappeared.

“Complicated.”

“You know,” Chris begins, irritation in the set of his shoulders.

“Brave.”

Chris falls silent.

“Brilliant. Needy,” he says, but it’s not the word he wants, not really, not in the context Chris will think. He can tell in that quick loss of light in Chris’s eyes, it’s a step too far if he’s not careful. “As in, you need to know, need to feel that you’re loved. How you’re loved. That’s not really a bad thing. That’s no less than you deserve, or anyone.” He doesn’t say that it’s also something to leave him a shade too vulnerable, to be preyed upon. Not in this company. This is not the time or place to relive that argument. 

“Okay,” Chris says, inclining his head, and Darren knows this means not only that he’s absolved, but also _then why couldn’t you really tell or show me_? But this is not the time or place for that complicated answer, either.

“Regretful,” Darren says quietly, and walks towards him. “And I wish you wouldn’t be. We’ve both fucked up, but we would’ve always ended up here, you know that?”

Chris starts a little, and Darren can tell he swallows whatever he’d like to say. “And last but not least, romantic.” He smiles, never breaking eye contact, that precious fragile thread tethering them, the promise of a page about to finally turn. “If I’m not terribly mistaken, you find this _terribly_ romantic. Especially for being unconventional.”

Chris takes a shaky breath, blinks heavily. “I knew you were going to take all ten. And I hate that you used ‘terribly’ twice in that sentence,” he says, and laughs.

Darren shrugs his _yeah, well_. “But I have your attention. And your number.”

“Always,” Chris confirms, and closes the space to kiss him. Whatever the stakes, he’s won.


End file.
